Guilty Pleasures
by Sublime-Tranquility
Summary: His touch made her very bones quiver, her skin cry out to be touched and tasted. She was always so rational, she did not want to experience this guilty pleasure. Or is he slowly changing her mind? DHR One-shot


**Disclaimer:** All the characters in this story belong to JK Rowling.

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**Guilty Pleasures**

He advances slowly toward me, that familiar malicious glint in his eyes.

Cold dread accumulates in the pit of my stomach.

He looks at me with that same hateful gaze, and with that same prowl he comes.

_Closer, and closer._

Until I can smell his spicy cologne as it lilts the air surrounding me.

He extends his hand at me, and I look down at it.

It is pale. It is thin. It is cold.

I do not touch it.

I look back at him, his painfully neutral face, his head perched at a diagonal to the gleaming chandelier in the hall.

I will the light to mask my view of him; I hate him so very much at that moment.

I know why he is here. I know at once why he comes.

But somehow, he always seems to surprise me.

"My condolences," he states, as he takes back his hand and plunges it into the security of his dark jade robes.

They are made of velvet, and I frown at his vanity.

But I swallow, I nod, I look away.

I know I am curt, but at least I am not succumbing to his mockery.

I at least pride myself for that.

"Look," he begins, and I close my eyes shut to halt the torrent of tears threatening to spill from them.

I loathe the tranquility of his voice.

Why will he not just leave me be, to my sorrows and false hope?

I look back at him, searching his silver-blue orbs for emotion. I know it is pointless, for he is always so obscure in such respects, yet I cannot help but look anyway.

And I see it.

His sincerity.

And it makes me sick.

"Granger - _Hermione_," he changes tack, and I feel soft, mirthless laughter escape my parched lips.

He dares to be so cordial with me!

And I...

I let him.

"What is it?" I whisper.

He shakes slightly. It seems as though he is trembling.

Yet the air is moist, and I hate him even more for showing weakness.

He has no right to be weak. This is what he has always wanted.

Isn't it?

I look away from him now, before I see something that may send me over the brink.

"Everyone is gone," he says hollowly, and I find myself wondering how literal his words are.

I quickly glance around the room, and realise the eerie silence of the hall.

I am dazed to note that he is not lying.

It seems he does have integrity, after all.

The black curtains flutter with the breeze; they seem to resemble the capes of superheroes and heroines, flying to danger in the hopes of saving yet another life...

I hope it is not mine they choose to save next.

I do not need saving.

I just want them to come back.

All of them.

I walk to one of the wooden chairs in the hall and pick up the sheet of white paper on it. It is such a blinding, pure colour, it seems almost a paradox to have it lying in such a sorrowful place.

I feel his eyes on my back as I open the small booklet, and I inhale sharply as I see those black words once more, protruding jarringly into my moist face from the paper.

_He is The Boy Who Lived, and thus, he shall always live on in our hearts._

I feel my eyes prickle once more and I scream.

His hands are on my arms now, massaging them, moving up and down in warm circles.

My scream falters and I descend to the floor. He is still holding me, and he rocks me slowly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"It's okay," he says quietly, though his voice cracks and betrays this notion.

I push him away, angered by his cliched methods to console me.

I do not need his comfort.

"You can't do this," I whisper.

He stares back into my eyes.

"Hold still," he murmurs, and I hate him even more.

He scrambles back to me and pulls me into his arms, bringing my head to rest on the crook of his shoulder.

He smoothes my hair, and I revel in the frizziness he is creating.

I sob once more and he hushes me.

"You're beautiful," he whispers doubtfully, as though this were a surprising thought in itself.

The tears this time cannot help but fall.

The gravity of his words tugs too hard.

Much too hard.

"Leave me alone, Malfoy," I say half-heartedly.

But he only pulls me closer.

"No," he says stubbornly. "You need me."

But I shake my head and look at him.

Into his eyes.

They seem so torrential, so swirling and powerful. They are more grey than blue, more silver than grey and yet they are moving ever so swiftly. I cannot bring myself to look away.

"I don't need you," I counter. "I don't need anyone."

But he stares back into my eyes, almost in challenge.

"Everybody needs someone," he says hoarsely.

And he claims my lips with his own and I feel as though he has ignited a blazing fire within me. His tongue is so hot in my mouth, I feel as though it is a flame in itself.

And before I can react his mouth moves downward, to scald my neck and nip at my skin. I gasp and close my eyes, pulling him closer, feeling I should otherwise explode if he does not touch me and taste me even more than he is doing now...

His lips reunite with mine soon and he pushes me to the ground roughly.

I hate him so much. But I want him.

I want this guilty pleasure.

I want to feel safe again, and youthful.

He discards my black mesh shawl and begins work on undoing my sweeping ebony frock.

Those hands - once so pale, so thin, so cold…

Those same hands work magic on me and I moan as he caresses and strokes me in ways which I have not been caressed and stroked for what seems a lifetime...

He halts, before proceeding once more in his ravaging discovery of my body.

He is so needy, so urgent that I cannot help but love his intensity.

We are both blinded to all else in the room.

The waning moon; the fluttering curtains; the screeching crickets.

I only see him and his persuasive fingers.

But maybe that's because that is, for once, all I want to see.


End file.
